Thierry Janaudy - J2EE Architect
Personal Profile
1. Background
I was born in the French West Indies, and enjoyed a great and sunny childhood.
I passed my private pilot license before my driving license and flew on Robin
2160, Cessna 150 & 172!
After studying maths and physics (“preparatory classes”) in France,
I joined an engineering school for Computer Science where I obtained my Master’s
degree in AI. I am particularly interested in Artificial Intelligence: Neural
Networks, Genetic Algorithms as well as Graph Theory.
2. How and why did you get in to OO technology?
I started with C++ and SmallTalk when studying. I learned Java in 1996,
with the JDK 1.0.
What I liked the most in OO were the notions of polymorphism and encapsulation.
Java brought me to the next level where the code could also be “beautiful” and
nice to look at!
3. What do you do to keep up your level of technical knowledge?
I spend time reading technical and business articles on technologies. I
am interested in Java, J2EE, J2ME and .NET related technologies.
I usually read specifications (such as the EJB 2.1 specification, or the C#
CLR, …), and sometimes when new concepts are introduced such as AOP,
I just give it a go: write some code samples and think about the potential
applications.
Keeping a good level of technical knowledge is a daily business.
4. What are your hobbies outside of IT?
I now spend most of my spare time with my daughter, Lucy. She is gorgeous!
International experience
1. You have worked in London for a while. How did arrive in London?
I have spent 3 years working in London – and I will hopefully get
back there in the near future. In 1999, I decided it was time to have an
international experience and to improve my English. I contacted a French
consulting company based in London, went for an interview and got hired!
One year later, I created my own company, Jyperion
Ltd, where I work as a technical architect specialising in distributed
architectures based on the J2EE platform.
2. What problems did you encounter in working in a foreign environment?
I had few problems. My colleagues were nice, and we spent many hours in
the pubs – talking about work, of course!
London is a beautiful city. The working environment is geared towards profits,
the work is challenging and the technologies are cutting edge!
3. Using your international experience can you contrast the English and French working environment?
In France, the management is vertical, whereas in an Anglo-Saxon environment,
the management is more horizontal and is there to help you and give you what
you need to achieve your goals. Most of the decisions are usually taken quickly,
but well thought out (France is more OO, Anglo-Saxon countries are more AOP-like).
In France, there is also the “Mafia des Grandes Ecoles”, where
companies usually favour diplomas to experience, but – and this is where
the contradiction lies – do not like to hire PhDs because of their orientation
for research!
A Master of Science is in the middle, and now I am even considering a PhD – but
I’d like it to be part-time and on an interesting subject!
France is a beautiful country, and has so many different aspects, but so far,
I prefer French wines, food and cheeses to French companies. But, I am sure,
that will change - because it has too. Our government is taking the right decisions.
Project Experience
J2EE
You are a respected J2EE expert. Tell us more about this experience:
1. In general, do you recommend J2EE technology on a project?
It depends, I try to be as objective as possible. I do not want to impose a technology but to choose the most suitable technology for the customer. My technical architect position leads me to choose C++-based products such as BEA Tuxedo, or J2EE application servers. J2EE is not suitable for everything, and expertise cannot easily be found even though it has many advantages and is supported by many vendors.
2. Is the scale of the project important in choosing J2EE technology?
I think it is. J2EE brings positive constraints for a project: working through interfaces, “business encapsulation” in EJB components, and separation of the business layer (SLSB/SFSB/MDB) with the persistence layer (CMP/JDO/Hibernate/OR) while taking away technical services such as clustering and transactions.
3. What are the mandatory skills for leading a J2EE project?
A deep understanding of the J2EE and EJB specifications in order to be able to design a scalable architecture that is modular and manageable.
4. What do you feel are the main pitfalls of J2EE?
I think that the main pitfall of J2EE is its deployment architecture and
the mandatory XML deployment descriptors as well as the mandatory interfaces
such as javax.ejb.SessionBean. The EJB specification is complex because it
solves specific problems that most of the projects never implement (Like
the use of the SessionSynchronization interface on a Stateful Session Bean
or the use of some callback methods: ejbPassivate, ejbActivate, ….).
Personally I would like to see default behaviour defined with no XML descriptor,
and optional interfaces that you may implement if you require a specific behaviour
based on some events from the container.
Today, you can simplify the deployment aspect by using tools such as Xdoclet
(xdoclet.sourceforge.net)
or EJBGen for BEA’s WLS (beust.com/ejbgen and www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-02-2002/jw-0222-ejbgen.html).
New JSRs are also on the way to simplify the EJB model:
- JSR 175 (www.jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=175)
a Meta-Data facility for Java,
- JSR220 (www.jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=220).
Project architecture
1. You have designed or participated to projects based on the J2EE architecture…, what is your definition of an “architect”?
An architect should be objective and should have common sense and should be proficient in n-tier architectures and security (authentication/authorisation as well as cryptography).
Business Vs Technology
1. In your experience how have you seen business influencing technical solutions, and what about the other way, technology influencing business?
Personally, I have never seen that. This could happen in a software product
company, but more rarely in other types of business. However, If you think
of Internet/Ethernet, it has definitely influenced business (LAN, Thin-clients, …).
Remember, J2EE and .Net are just frameworks on which technical solutions are
based, and are not influencing the business (well, apart for Microsoft, Sun,
BEA, IBM, … J).
Aside
1. What are your 5 favourite web sites?
2. What interesting technologies are
emerging?
In the software industry, I would say: AOP-based frameworks such as jBoss 4 (www.jboss.org), but it is not a revolution, more an evolution.
3. What are your favourite technical books?
Applied Cryptography by Bruce Schneier.
4. Looking into the crystal ball, where do you see J2EE in 3 years?
Pretty much the same as today with a simplified deployment model and the proliferation of development tools a la VB.
This interview has been conducted in June 2003. ©Liemur Ltd. 2003
